Printing firm Rival Colour has been accredited as a living wage employer, committing to paying staff the living wage rate of at least £7.85 an hour.The organisation will pay all workers the hourly living wage, regardless of whether they are permanent employees or third-party contractors and suppliers.The living wage is independently calculated on an annual basis according to the basic cost of living in the UK. This voluntary rate is higher than the national minimum wage of £6.50 an hour, and is distinct from the national living wage announced by the Chancellor in the 2015 Summer Budget.Nick Clode, managing director at Rival Colour, said: “Rival Colour decided to sign up for the living wage accreditation to further endorse the commitment of our staff to Rival, and to show our customers and suppliers we are committed to investing in the heart of the business.“In turn, we hope that [organisations] that want to deal with like-minded businesses will also value our commitment and want to deal with us and other [organisations] signing up to this very worthwhile accreditation.”read more

Employee Benefits Live 2016: EY promotes flexible working among its employees in order to support a high-performance culture and a diverse workforce.Addressing delegates in his keynote speech at Olympia National, London, Steve Varley, UK chairman and managing partner at EY, spoke about why a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture is a key part of the organisation’s competitive advantage.With 15,000 UK employees, ranging from graduate trainees to trained auditors, EY promotes a culture that attracts and retains key talent, while offering employees a working environment to help them thrive and deliver an outstanding service to its clients.Varley said: “Our purpose as a firm is to build a better working world.”A key part of this aspiration is supporting employees’ work-life balance with a flexible working programme. Key to this is an open and candid conversation about how, when and where an individual would want to work, and how this could balance with the needs of teams and clients.Varley said: “Once we have recruited our people, how do we ensure that we are able to fulfil their career aspirations and offer working arrangements that will help support them throughout the different stages of their careers with us?“We refuse to let people be forced out of a career because we couldn’t be flexible enough to accommodate their situation. Our underlying philosophy is that if we are able to get the best out of our people, by accommodating their needs, then the organisation as well as the individual benefits.”Alongside the flexible working programme, EY introduced more shared parental leave that offers its employees greater flexibility and choice over how their children are cared for in the first year of their life; for example, it offers 39 weeks enhanced pay.Varley said: “We hope that this will empower parents to make choices about childcare that suit their own individual circumstances and hopefully they will not have to make sacrifices in their working lives and careers.”He added: “We believe it creates greater equality for fathers, adoptive parents and same-sex couples; giving our people greater control over their work and home lives helps us to create a high-performance culture.”EY also offers career and family coaching to all parents taking or returning from parental leave, as well as support through its parents network, one of 50 employee networks in the organisation.read more

Employee Benefits poll: More than two-fifths (44%) of respondents are planning to offer a party or event as a Christmas incentive for their employees this year.A straw poll of www.employeebenefits.co.uk readers, which received 54 responses, also found that 24% of respondents are planning to give staff a gift or a bonus pain in either cash or vouchers as a Christmas incentive, compared to 13% who are planning to award additional holiday as a Christmas incentive.Meanwhile, 4% of respondents will use another form of incentive for their employees, and 15% of respondents are not planning to offer any Christmas incentives for staff.According to the Edenred Christmas reward 2017 report, published in November 2017, which surveyed 1,000 UK employees, 61% of respondents did not receive a Christmas reward from their employer last year, although a further 61% feel that receiving a Christmas reward makes them feel more appreciated and 29% expect a gift from their employer.Edenred’s research also found that more than half (58%) of respondents wanted to receive a reward other than cash at Christmas, while 61% said their employer commonly gave a non-cash reward.Do you feel that Uber drivers and Deliveroo riders should receive the same employment rights, for example holiday pay and the national minimum wage? Have your say in our newest poll.read more

(WSVN) – A mother of two has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to allowing men to rape her daughters in exchange for money and drugs.According to Fox 32, 25-year-old Morgan Summerlin pled guilty to counts of first-degree cruelty to children, enticing a child for indecent purposes and trafficking a person for sexual servitude last month.Related: Mother pleads guilty to allowing men to rape her children in exchange for cashInvestigators said Summerlin’s daughters, ages 5 and 6, told their guardians how their mom would take them to strange men’s homes to be molested and raped.The men would pay the girls, who then would hand the money over to their mother.Summerlin was sentenced by a Fulton County judge Monday.Copyright 2019 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.read more

HIALEAH GARDENS, FLA. (WSVN) – Drivers on the southbound lanes of Interstate 75 near Miami Gardens Drive in Hialeah Gardens are currently facing delays as firefighters work to clear the burnt remains of a car that caught fire.Miami-Dade Fire Rescue crews responded to the scene just before 12:30 p.m., Tuesday.7SkyForce HD flew over the scene where firefighters could be seen hosing down the charred SUV on the side of the highway.The driver is said to be OK.Copyright 2019 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.read more

Copyright 2019 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) – Rescue crews took a male victim to the hospital after, his family said, he was shot near a Miami-Dade Transit bus at a Busway stop in Southwest Miami-Dade.Miami-Dade Police and Fire Rescue units responded to the scene of the shooting near Southwest 272nd Street, just after 12:15 p.m., Sunday.The victim’s mother said he was heading to work and had stepped off a bus when he was shot in the arm.Paramedics transported the victim to an area hospital. His mother said he is listed in stable condition and will need to undergo surgery.7News cameras captured detectives speaking to the bus driver and collecting the victim’s bloodstained shirt.Investigators have not provided further information as to what may have caused the shooting.The victim’s mother said it’s unclear whether or not her son was hit by a stray bullet. read more

At this time there are no criminal charges involved in her disappearance, according to Troopers. Abigail Bystedt, 17, is reportedly now safe with family. A Trooper Spokesman said AST was made aware of her location on November 27. Facebook0TwitterEmailPrintFriendly分享A missing Soldotna teenager has been found after missing for almost three weeks, according to the Alaska State Troopers. Bystedt was last seen in Soldotna on November 9 wearing jeans, a black sweater and a carrying a grey backpack. Her name has been removed from the missing person bulletin list.read more

Luna’s uncle Carlos Luna says his niece was 32. She was originally from Camarillo, California. The action comes after the passenger and the pilot of a Beaver floatplane operated by Taquan Air were killed when the aircraft crashed in Metlakatla Harbor on Monday afternoon during a scheduled commuter flight from Ketchikan. Thomas says the floatplane was being towed to land. Eds: Corrects model of Taquan plane in May 13 crash to Otter, not Beaver.___10 a.m.Federal officials say an Alaska air carrier involved in two deadly floatplane crashes in a week has voluntarily suspended operations. The pilot was identified as 51-year-old Ron Rash of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was identified by Police Chief Bruce Janes. Monday’s crash followed the May 13 midair collision of a Taquan Air Otter floatplane with another floatplane. Six people died in that crash and another 10 people were injured.___12:20 p.m.An Alaska tribal health organization says the passenger killed in the state’s latest floatplane crash was a staff epidemiologist. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in a statement Tuesday said that Sarah Luna joined the group nearly a year ago. Taquan Air officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ketchikan Gateway Borough spokeswoman Deanna Thomas said in a statement that the passenger and the pilot of a Beaver floatplane operated by Taquan Air crashed in Metlakatla Harbor Monday afternoon. The Federal Aviation Administration says the halt of flightseeing and commuter flights is in place until further notice. Facebook0TwitterEmailPrintFriendly分享Photo by Aerial LeaskKETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — The Latest on a second fatal Alaska floatplane crash in a week (all times local):3:20 p.m.The police chief of Metlakatla has identified the pilot of Monday’s deadly commuter plane crash in that Alaska community. Monday’s crash followed the May 13 midair collision of a Taquan Air Otter floatplane with another floatplane. Six people died in that crash and another 10 people were injured. The two died when a Beaver floatplane operated by Taquan Air crashed in Metlakatla Harbor on Monday afternoon. Consortium spokeswoman Shirley Young says Luna was flying to the community of Metlatkatla to provide health services when the plane crashed. The accident followed the May 13 midair collision of a Taquan Air Beaver floatplane with another floatplane. The victims in the latest crash were not identified because their families were being notified. Luna and the pilot of a Beaver floatplane operated by Taquan Air were killed when the aircraft crashed in Metlakatla Harbor on Monday afternoon. The pilot’s name has not been made public. Monday’s crash followed the May 13 midair collision of a Taquan Air Beaver floatplane with another floatplane. Six people died in that crash and another 10 people were injured.___6:25 a.m.Authorities say the second Alaska floatplane crash in a week has killed two people in the same region where two floatplanes collided last week in an accident that left six people dead. Clint Johnson, chief of the National Transportation Safety Board in Alaska, says witnesses reported the crash occurred during landing. Thomas says the circumstances of the latest crash are not yet being made public. Also killed was 32-year-old passenger Sarah Luna, a staff epidemiologist with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.read more

Photo taken near Watson Lake at approximately 6:30 p.m. by Patrick Quiner/Alaska Division of Forestry Facebook0TwitterEmailPrintFriendly分享The Division of Forestry has received several calls regarding smoke from the Swan Lake Fire near milepost 70 of the Sterling Highway. According to officials with DOF the fire poses no threat at this time. The fire was reported Wednesday night and is burning in a Limited protection area in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. No action is being taken at this point because the fire does not pose a threat and is being allowed to play its natural ecological role in the refuge. DOF fire managers are working with refuge personnel to manage the fire. The 10-acre fire north of the highway has become active with the hot, dry conditions and is putting up a smoke column that is visible from Anchorage, Sterling, Soldotna and Kenai.read more

Governor Dunleavy: “It doesn’t follow the law, the law that’s been in effect for decades. That law is still in existence.” The governor campaigned on a dividend funded under the formula set in a 1982 state law, which would be roughly $3,000. But the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a smaller amount of $1,600. The letter was sent to the governor on Friday. Among those who signed the letter is Homer Representative Sarah Vance: “Alaskans have spoken clearly that they want a full, statutory Permanent Fund Dividend. We believe that the PFD belongs to Alaskans, and that reverence for the law should not be diminished.” The full list of legislators who sigened the letter in support of the full PFD are: Senators Mia Costello, Shelley Hughes, Peter Micciche, Lora Reinbold, Mike Shower, Bill Wielechowski, and Representatives Ben Carpenter, Sharon Jackson, Gabrielle LeDoux, Laddie Shaw, Dave Talerico, Chris Tuck, and Sarah Vance. Facebook0TwitterEmailPrintFriendly分享A bipartisan group of legislators have sent a letter to Governor Mike Dunleavy reiterating their continued support for a full, statutory Permanent Fund Dividend. The legislature sent House Bill 2001 to the governor which would fund a $1,600 PFD for eligible Alaskans. If the governor chooses to veto the bill then Alaskans could receive their payment later this year than normal.read more

TAMPA, Florida—Magazines, when they sell, are a category powerhouse. So why aren’t they selling more? Day two of the Magazine Publishers of America’s 2008 Retail conference was dominated by data looking to answer that question. Surveys anchored the day’s presentations—from the role of magazines at retail from a female shopper’s perspective; to a Willard Bishop Grocery SuperStudy that highlighted the magazine category’s significant profit margin; and finally, a united call to action from three of the industry’s distributors. And while magazines do face some challenges at retail, the performance-based figures are very positive. Yet these figures are good only when magazines actually make it from shelf to shopping cart, a transition the day’s speakers and panelists paid special attention to.Magazine Shoppers Like to BuyWendy Liebmann, founder and CEO of retail market research firm WSL Strategic Retail, presented a niche version of WSL’s “How America Shops” survey that examined the magazine’s place in a shopper’s retail experience-how 700 (mostly female) shoppers who usually buy magazines compare to a broader population of shoppers that tend not to. Top-line findings show women who tend to buy magazines when they go shopping are cautious shoppers, but they like to browse. In fact, they’re a bit less price-sensitive, said Liebmann. Also, women who buy magazines at retail shop at a greater variety of channels, and are more likely to buy online: 71 percent of magazine shoppers shop online compared to 34 percent of regular shoppers. Magazines are number-one on the list of an affordable, less than $10, treat. Sixty-one percent surveyed prefer magazines over beverages, books and candy. Magazines Perform WellTom Griffith, senior consultant at Willard Bishop, another retail market research firm, presented findings from the firm’s Grocery SuperStudy, based on a calendar 2006 analysis of all departments and SKUs in a cross-section of stores. The study noted that while center-store space is shrinking in favor of perimeter space, magazines are a solid category performer. Among the findings: Within general merchandise, magazines generate 6.4 percent of sales and 16.3 percent of the profit at $.58 of profit per unit. Magazines provide a higher true profit per unit than other front-end categories: Gum, $.27; candy, $.12; carbonated beverages, $.08; and snacks, $.34.A Call to ActionA panel representing the industry’s major distributors-Drew Wintemberg, EVP sales, Time/Warner Retail, Jay Felts, SVP sales and marketing, Comag, and Jay Wysong, EVP and COO, Distribution Services, Inc.-offered a compelling call to action for the industry to improve retail sales. The day’s earlier presentations offered positive retail performance figures for the magazine category, and this panel offered some of their own, but the full sales potential of the category can only be met if the industry unites in its message to retailers, said Wintemberg. Despite rock-solid performance, retailers still aren’t giving magazines the space or attention needed to exploit the sales figures. “We, as an industry, have got to find a way to get together and make it easier to do business with our category,” said Wintemberg. “We have to put our egos aside because if we don’t we’re going to lose the space to other categories.”Wintemberg compared the effort needed to sell the category into retail to the effort the industry puts into lobbying for postal rates. “We need to mobilize our industry around newsstand in the same way as we have with our postal rate lobbying efforts. We need the same commitment,” he said.Comag’s Felts noted that when dealing at the retail level, the category must be sold first and then sell the title. “We need to secure the beachhead first, and then get into the individual titles,” he said.Felts said the category’s profitability, despite being comparatively high, remains hidden. “On the supply side, this comes across as an unnecessarily complex business, but we’re quickly approaching the $5 billion sales mark as a category in 2010.”Wintemberg said the panel’s presentation will soon be delivered to industry organizations to help facilitate the united message. “You have to take it and use it as a preamble every time you make a call. Treat this as an industry first,” he said.read more

Such “breakthroughs” attract attention, but they usually seem to get in the way of print’s virtues rather than to accentuate them. Both the CueCat and augmented reality presume that magazine readers want to sit at a computer, magazine in hand—when effortless portability is one of the key benefits that the printed word retains over the Web. And Esquire tried gamely to deal with the limitations of the still-rudimentary, monochromatic e-ink technology—but the resulting cover was far less compelling than most of the ones it produces with plain old non-electronic ink. The best magazines have infinite potential to thrive in the digital age, but that the secret to success won’t lie in trying to be digital. Letting magazines be magazines is a far smarter strategy: If I were a magazine editor today, I’d be redoubling my efforts to deliver the most useful, imaginative, well-packaged service journalism possible. And if I were a marketer investing print advertising dollars, I’d want my messages to appear in the publications that did the best job of engaging readers through high-quality, ever-evolving editorial content.I don’t mean to entirely dismiss augmented reality. The technology has the potential to develop into something genuinely useful. Imagine, for instance, seeing exactly what you’d look like in a particular pair of eyeglasses by viewing an augmented-reality feature that digitally painted them onto your on-screen image. And hey, gimmicks can be fun, at least for awhile. Yet another faddish innovation that augmented reality reminds me of is the spate of ads back in the 1980s that played tinny music via embedded sound chips. Anyone want to argue that those changed the magazine industry for the better? All around us, magazines are undergoing the futuristic process known as augmented reality. It started this past summer, when Popular Science worked with a company called Metaio to create a cover which, when held up to a computer’s Webcam, appeared on-screen in a form that was half live video, half 3-D animation, with 3-D animated wind turbines that spun when the reader blew into the computer’s microphone. (The whole extravaganza was sponsored by wind turbine maker GE.) More recently, Real Simple announced that its December issue would use similar technology from Total Immersion to create a 3-D gift box filled with video content from advertisers. And the December issues of gaming titles from Future US will feature augmented-reality ads for a game called Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Hold the ad in front of your Webcam, and a 3-D animated battle will break out on your display. In multiple ways, it feels like deja vu all over again. Magazine publishers keep attempting to inject interactivity into their print publications via high-tech features that appears to great fanfare and never seem to go much of anywhere. I’m thinking of everything from the CueCat, the legendarily unsuccessful feline-shaped barcode scanner adopted by Forbes and Wired in 2000, to Esquire’s flashing e-ink 75th anniversary cover from last year. Augmented reality is sexier than either the CueCat or e-ink, but in its current form, it produces the same sort of basic cognitive dissonance. read more

MetroStudy has been collecting supply and demand data at the regional level, but the OnTarget launch adds consumer segment data to the mix. OnTarget’s main purpose is to collect and provide data to the trade on buying trends down to the household. Hanley Wood’s MetroStudy group has collected 10,000 data attributes on more than 100 million of them. So for Hanley Wood, the new service enables the one-two punch that marketers are so desperate for these days—targeted execution and ROI. And the icing on the cake is it opens up a new way to capture marketing dollars for HW. “Up to this point, this data has not existed in the new residential construction market,” says Reid. “The exciting part is that consumer segment level data unlocks a vast array of targeted marketing execution capabilities that we can deploy for clients allowing them to achieve much higher levels of ROI on their marketing spend.” In effect, says Hanley Wood CEO Peter Goldstone, the company is now able to not only match up buyers and sellers in a business-to-business context, but adds in the consumer buyer as well. Beyond that, the MetroStudy/OnTarget product captures the B2B holy grail—providing crucial, must-have insights that customers can’t get anywhere else. But the new construction market has been relatively underserved from a data perspective. “As a result, industry participants have had extremely limited information with which they can use about the marketplace,” says Reid. “Marrying our data with consumer data to own the B2B supply chain and consumer activation is ground breaking,” he says. “Then marrying the data solution with the marketing services solution is the full end-to-end consumer targeting activation strategy.” Others have been trying to crack this data challenge, too. Reid points to the emergence of services like Zillow that target the resale market with its pricing algorithm. Andy Reid, Hanley Wood’s head of digital, explains: “At the heart of this complexity is the sheer volume of residential properties in the U.S., 100+ million in aggregate. Coupled with this sheer size is the fact that there is no one standard set of information about residential properties that span the entire U.S. Every state, county and municipality each has their own standards for reporting information about those residential homes.” Hanley Wood has expanded its data services to the consumer market. With the launch of its OnTarget consumer intelligence platform, the company can now connect its construction equipment and manufacturing customers with supply chain end-users—the folks who are looking for homes to build or remodeling their kitchens. Using the service, Builders can identify consumers who are shopping for homes or are planning to remodel an existing one in a particular region. “Instead of buying a billboard on a highway, they get specific households to target,” says Goldstone. MetroStudy has managed to smooth out the data challenges inherent in a market as complex as construction. “It provides a totally unique proposition for Hanley Wood to go after the huge consumer marketing spend of our existing B2B clients that we previously didn’t have a proposition for,” says Reid.read more

Led by Giulio Capua since Pamela Drucker Mann was promoted to CMO as part of the company’s most recent shakeup, the Food Innovation Group claims to reach an audience of 86 million across print and digital.To record or not to record?From Eric Bolling to Anthony Scaramucci, Wednesday was quite a day for threats of legal action against reporters brought by Wall Street traders-turned-political commentators.To recap: On Wednesday morning, Fox News host Eric Bolling brought a $50 million defamation suit against Yashar Ali, a contributor to HuffPost, New York magazine, and Mother Jones, among others, in response to Ali’s report citing a dozen sources claiming that Bolling had sent unwanted lewd texts and photos to female colleagues several years ago. Fox News has suspended Bolling pending an investigation.Then, Wednesday evening, short-lived White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci emulated his former boss by taking to Twitter to call The New Yorker‘s Washington correspondent, Ryan Lizza, “the Linda Tripp of 2017” for secretly recording the bizarre July 26 phone call Scaramucci placed to him and publishing a transcript — an act which, ultimately, led to Scaramucci’s dismissal from the Trump administration after ten days on the job.When another user replied asking Scaramucci if he was accusing Lizza of taping the call without his permission, Mooch replied, “Yes. He absolutely taped the call without my permission. #lowlife.”Lizza may have cost himself a friend, but from a legal standpoint, in neither Washington, D.C., nor New York was he required to obtain Scaramucci’s consent or even notify him before recording the call or releasing the transcript. Both jurisdictions are under one-party consent laws, meaning only one party to the phone call need consent to a recording for the act to be legal.The lesson here, for journalists, (and the beauty of America) is that different states operate under different laws. To avoid liability, reporters — particularly those who cover beats in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or a handful of other states with tighter restrictions — ought to be aware of what they can and can’t do when communicating with sources across state lines.Thursday morning, Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake referred readers to this handy guide detailing state-by-state consent requirements for recording conversations.From the job board…The American Library Association seeks a full-time, Chicago-based senior editor for Booklist, the association’s print and digital magazine and book review portal. The ideal candidate possesses at least five years of relevant experience as well as a Master of Library Science degree. Salary negotiable.View this and other current job openings at careers.foliomag.com.Move over, Charity Navigator.For more than a century, since before the days of prohibition and the outbreak of World War I, the Good Housekeeping Seal has served as a trusted beacon for discerning homemakers seeking quality-tested consumer products for themselves and their families.Today, 106 years after debut of the original Good Housekeeping Seal, the Hearst-owned brand announced the introduction of a new badge of honor: the Good Housekeeping Humanitarian Seal, intended to help guide consumers deciding which charities to support, much in the same way the original seal helps them evaluate which products to purchase.“The GH Humanitarian seal allows us to raise awareness about the importance of being kind to others, and honor organizations … that are working tirelessly and selflessly to make a meaningful impact,” said editor-in-chief Jane Francisco in a statement.In response to the logical question of just how Good Housekeeping is qualified to evaluate the legitimacy of various charities, Hearst Magazines added, in the statement, that staff consulted with financial and legal experts, as well as “seasoned consultants in the fields of nonprofit governance, social responsibility, and charitable giving” to determine the criteria — which include financial stability, accountability, and transparency — for bestowing the Humanitarian Seal upon an organization.The first charity to receive the honor is WE Charity (formerly known as Free the Children), a 12-year-old Toronto-based organization focused on promoting education and youth empowerment throughout both North America and the developing world. Since its founding, the organization, says Good Housekeeping, has provided more than one-million people with clean water, built 1,000 schools, and provided more than 200,000 children access to education.“After a rigorous 10-step evaluation process carried out over several months … WE met and even surpassed our intense criteria,” added Good Housekeeping Institute director Laurie Jennings in the statement. “Like other GH Seal stars, we support WE Charity, and feel confident anyone who contributes their time or dollars can trust it will be used in the most meaningful and responsible way.” Hello, neighbor.A little under two years ago, Time Inc. followed fellow magazine giant Condé Nast in relocating its headquarters from Midtown Manhattan downtown to the Financial District, renting a 700,000 foot space spanning eight floors at 225 Liberty St., just across the street from Condé’s One World Trade Center digs.Now, Condé Nast is returning the favor.By this November, the publisher intends to open a 6,300-square foot video production studio for its Food Innovation Group — which consists of the brands Bon Appetit and Epicurious, among others — in Brooklyn’s Industry City, the same location where Time Inc. opened its own content studio, The Foundry, in late 2015.The space will house “state-of-the-art kitchen and video facilities,” according to a statement from Industry City, whose current tenants also include Serious Eats, The Brooklyn Rail, Bust magazine, and Publicis Group’s creative studio, Prodigious.read more

https://twitter.com/RhiannonGiddens/status/1045848578088980480 News Twitter Get the inside scoop on the all-star band at the center of Friday night’s festivities in RaleighDerek HalseyGRAMMYs Sep 29, 2018 – 7:03 pm There is a strange moment that happens at the end of the annual International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass convention in Raleigh, N.C. A surreal transition takes place on Friday afternoon. After a week of business being done, seminars and workshops taking place, and bands doing late night showcases for talent buyers, record label reps and DJs from all over the world, the mood changes abruptly.Once the IBMA Awards show on Thursday night is over and the free-form jams that last until dawn have died out, the streets of Raleigh are blocked off, stages are set up and the vendors get ready for the Wide Open Street Fest.Beginning at noon on Friday, tens of thousands of festival goers show up to enjoy eight stages of live music with some of the best musicians in the world playing for who really counts: the general public.A big part of the Wide Open Bluegrass Street Festival is the performances at the beautiful 5,500-seat Red Hat Amphitheater located in the heart of Raleigh. This year, on Sept. 28, the headliners are the First Ladies of Bluegrass, an amazing group of women who have bursted through the ceiling of the bluegrass genre to rightfully claim their place in history.The First Ladies of Bluegrass include Missy Raines, the first and only female musician to win the IBMA Bass Player of the Year award, Alison Brown, the first woman to win the IBMA Banjo Player of the Year award, Sierra Hull, the first and only woman to ever win the IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year award, Becky Buller, the first and only woman to ever win the IBMA Fiddler of the Year prize, and Molly Tuttle, the first and only female to ever take home the IBMA Guitar Player of the Year honor.Raines and Brown’s breakthroughs happened in the 1990s, but Hull, Buller and Tuttle’s awards came about within the last two years. The times are still changing.The impetus for this lineup came from the recording of Raines’ new album, Royal Traveler, a year ago. Produced by Brown for Brown’s label, Compass Records, an idea was hatched to bring in Hull, Tuttle and Buller for the recording of the song “Swept Away.” From there, the all-star collaboration that would grace the stage at Wide Open Street Fest was set in motionTo add to the excitement of the show, two special guest musicians were added to the First Ladies of Bluegrass bill: Rhiannon Giddens and Gillian Welch. Both Giddens and Welch are GRAMMY-winning artists, and Giddens gave the IBMA World of Bluegrass Keynote Address a couple of years ago.Before the First Ladies of Bluegrass band takes the stage, however, lightning strikes for this special lineup of female talent when on the evening of Sept. 27, exactly 24 hours before their headlining show, Raines, Brown, Tuttle, Hull, and Buller won the IBMA Recorded Event of the Year Award for “Swept Away.” Additionally, Hull earned another IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year title and Tuttle won her second IBMA Guitar Player of the Year award in a row. Backstage at the Fest, we talked to Raines, Buller and Giddens about this historic grouping.When Raines was growing up near the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and going to bluegrass festivals as a kid, she was inspired by watching the Katie Laur Band perform. Laur was one of the first females to lead a bluegrass band of men that were not related to her in any way.“I think about Katie Laur a lot because, even though I wasn’t imagining leading a band when I was a teenager, she stood out to me because she was in stark contrast to a lot of the women I saw playing music at the time,” said Raines. “It was Katie’s group and she was leading it and fronting a band of men, and that was something you didn’t see much then. And, there was a style about her while onstage that I really liked. She would talk to people like they were in her living room, and I was very influenced by her presence and what she was doing onstage as much as her music.”Giddens grew up listening to all kinds of music as a kid in North Carolina. While her own style is more on the old-time, African-American blues and old-school country side with modern sensibilities and a little funk thrown into the mix, bluegrass music was in her ears for as long as she can remember.“Bluegrass is probably the genre that I have had the longest relationship with because my uncle was a bluegrass musician and evidently my grandfather was one as well, though I never met him,” said Giddens. “It was a part of my upbringing and a part of who I am. I don’t play it, but I sure appreciate it and have my favorite sound in it. I am drawn to the older stuff. Newer bluegrass is very virtuosic and the modern pickers are amazing and they can do all kinds of things. But, I like my bluegrass a bit more gritty. One of my favorite mandolin players is Mike Compton, who plays a style that is real. He just digs in there and does it. I’m not really into the clean, fast picking, even though it is amazing to see.”Giddens is also well-aware of the history being made with Raines’ group.“The image of bluegrass music is still, to a certain extent, a bunch of guys in suits playing onstage,” said Giddens. “Image doesn’t always reflect reality. That is why things like this First Ladies of Bluegrass show are important so people know that women are playing these instruments and have been influential going back to the beginning. It is like, ‘We are here, and we kick butt and have been kicking butt for a long time, so we’re letting you in on a little secret.” Man it’s been awesome to work with the ladies of bluegrass…cooking up some good stuff for tonight. @missyraines @sierrahull @molly_tuttle @FiddlerBeckyB @alisononbanjo @gillianwelch #IBMA pic.twitter.com/MuVcCiSMbe— Rhiannon Giddens (@RhiannonGiddens) September 29, 2018 Facebook Email Buller grew up in Minnesota before making her way south to the wonderful Bluegrass, Old-time and Country Music Program at East Tennessee State University. Now, even as a performer who has won some big awards, she gets emotional thinking about standing beside and playing music with such impressive women.“I still think of myself as a bluegrass picker from Minnesota who grew up playing with my family,” said Buller. “I never dared to dream that I would get to do this at the level that I am getting to do it now. I look over and I think, ‘Whew! It’s Alison Brown. Wow. And, I’m playing with her.’ Each and every one of these ladies is a hero of mine. All of these women are so nice and it is just a joy to get to spend time with them, and then to get to create music with them as well.”With all of this history and excitement mounting around the First Ladies of Bluegrass’ special IBMA Wide Open Street Fest appearance, the anticipation is palpable – especially for Buller.”I imagine that at this show a part of me is going to be flipping out,” added Buller. “But, the other part of me is saying, ‘Yeah, man! Let’s pick!’”Photo Gallery: Inside World Of Bluegrass, IBMA Awards & Festival in Raleigh First Ladies Of Bluegrass Make History At IBMA first-ladies-bluegrass-make-history-ibma-wide-open-street-fest First Ladies Of Bluegrass Make History At IBMA Wide Open Street Fest Read moreread more

WILMINGTON, MA — Here are highlights from the Wilmington Police Log for Wednesday, October 24, 2018:Police & Fire responded to a pellet stove malfunction, causing smoke in the house, on Linda Road. (5:41am)Police observed operator of a North Reading Transportation school van texting while pulling through turnaround at Middle School. Police contacted NRT. (9:09am)A Somerville Avenue caller reported a neighbor was blowing leaves into their yard. Police responded. Ongoing issue between four neighbors. Peace restored. (10:12am)Citizen reported incident involving an unruly fan at the football game back on October 21 at 8:45pm at High School. (1:03pm)5 ladders fell of a work truck and onto a vehicle on Jewel Drive. Police attempted to make contract with truck owner. (2:44pm)Police collected ammo found in a safe at a home per homeowner’s instructions. (3:19pm)2 vehicle crash took place on Main Street. A physical altercation between operators was reported. Vehicles were gone by the time police arrived. (5:38pm) A walk-in party stated he was assaulted during an exchange of paperwork following a motor vehicle crash. (7:30pm)A 36-year-old Wilmington man was taken into protective custody and his vehicle was towed. (10:00pm)(DISCLAIMER: This information is public information. An arrest does not constitute a conviction. Any arrested person is innocent until proven guilty.)Like Wilmington Apple on Facebook. Follow Wilmington Apple on Twitter. Follow Wilmington Apple on Instagram. Subscribe to Wilmington Apple’s daily email newsletter HERE. Got a comment, question, photo, press release, or news tip? Email wilmingtonapple@gmail.com.Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading… RelatedPOLICE LOG for September 5: Train Conductor Helps Locate Missing Puppy; Rented Trucks Not Returned To UHaulIn “Police Log”POLICE LOG for August 5: Driver Throws Beer Bottles; Syringe Found; Woburn Man Issued Summons; Texting While DrivingIn “Police Log”POLICE LOG for August 23: Break-Ins on Ballardvale Street; Ride-On Lawn Mower vs. Parked Car; Erratic DriverIn “Police Log”read more

WILMINGTON, MA — Here are highlights from the Wilmington Police Log for Friday, December 21, 2018:Laura L. Francis (36, Wilmington) was issued a summons for an Uninsured Motor Vehicle. (12:49am)Police conducted youth protection training at the station. (1:08am)Police came across an individual sleeping in a vehicle in the MBTA paring lot on Main Street. Situation checked OK. Individual was just resting before work. (1:37am)A Burlington Avenue resident reported a package was stolen off his porch. (5:02pm)A hawk was trapped inside the Savers store. Animal Control Officer was unable to catch the hawk. Employees will leave doors open as long as possible before closing. Officer will return in the morning if necessary with the Arlington Animal Control Officer. (5:23pm)(DISCLAIMER: This information is public information. An arrest does not constitute a conviction. Any arrested person is innocent until proven guilty.)Like Wilmington Apple on Facebook. Follow Wilmington Apple on Twitter. Follow Wilmington Apple on Instagram. Subscribe to Wilmington Apple’s daily email newsletter HERE. Got a comment, question, photo, press release, or news tip? Email wilmingtonapple@gmail.com.Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading… RelatedPOLICE LOG for August 19: Fist Fight At Planet Fitness; Hawk Stuck Inside Building; Gas Line StruckIn “Police Log”POLICE LOG for July 26: 2 Missing Teens; OUI Arrest; Main St. Shut Down Due To Crash; Road Rage IncidentIn “Police Log”POLICE LOG for June 6: Women Fighting Or Just Watching The Bruins?; Package Stolen From Porch; Coyote SightingIn “Police Log”read more

Tags Share your voice Post a comment Sci-Tech 0 By midday Tuesday, Blue Origin was reporting that weather looked good for a planned blastoff at 8:50 a.m. Central Time Wednesday from its west Texas launch facility. The whole thing will be live-streamed via Blue Origin’s website.This will be the 10th mission for New Shepard, which is sort of like a smaller version of the reusable Falcon 9 rocket that is the workhorse for Elon Musk’s SpaceX. But Blue Origin has plans for a larger, orbital-class rocket to compete more directly with SpaceX for commercial missions launching satellites and other heavier payloads. Last week, the company shared this new video animation of a New Glenn mission. It hopes the first such launch will take place from Cape Canaveral, Florida in 2021. We are go for launch tomorrow. Weather looking good. Targeting liftoff at 8:50 am CST / 14:50 UTC. Follow live on https://t.co/7Y4The9OmR and check out the @NASA payloads flying with us https://t.co/XL8Yu1hKmI pic.twitter.com/pkRpcUVJQB— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) January 22, 2019 Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket ready for launch in Texas, backed by a starry sky. Blue Origin After a number of delays, Blue Origin is hoping to get back to space as soon as Wednesday with its first launch in six months.The rocket company owned by Jeff Bezos plans to send its New Shepard rocket carrying eight NASA-sponsored research projects to spend some brief time in microgravity before coming back down.The payloads include experiments to study things like Earth’s electromagnetic field, measuring fuel levels using sound waves and ways to keep tightly packed electronics cool. The full list of projects can be found on Blue Origin’s website.The launch was originally set for December, but got scrubbed due to “a ground infrastructure issue.” After fixing the issue and reviewing other systems, lift-off was rescheduled for Monday, but forecast high winds pushed the mission again to Wednesday. Blue Origin Jeff Bezos NASA Spaceread more

Share your voice In the first collection, stolen credentials come from breaches as far back as 2008, sourced from more than 2,000 different hacked websites. The rest of the set, which weighs in at more than 600GB, includes data from hacks that hit MySpace and Adobe in 2013. Stolen credentials, especially on this scale, can be extremely valuable, but they’ve popped up for free on the dark web and hacker forums over the last month. Some entrepreneurial hackers have chosen to charge for the stolen data, despite its age. “These collections contain enough credential sets that some percentage are bound to still be valid, and they’re directly in the line of sight for the criminal community,” Wilson said. “Even accounts that have since undergone a password change are still at risk: email addresses are appetizing targets for phishing attacks, and regular password reuse across multiple platforms means that even if the exposed account has undergone a password change, there may be plenty of other accounts still using that same compromised password.”While the stolen information is old, hackers are betting that a small percentage of people in the data dump never changed their credentials, or are still using the same passwords years later. If even just one-tenth of 1 percent of people in the massive leak still use the same passwords, that’s 2.2 million accounts that hackers could potentially access. Considering that 45 percent of people would keep the same password after a breach, according to a LastPass survey, the odds are in the attackers’ favor. The massive amount of stolen data is most useful for credential stuffing, a technique in which bots flood multiple services with the same set of login information as quickly as possible. If someone uses the same username and password for their hacked account on LinkedIn that they do for their bank accounts, for example, it could be an opening for credential stuffers to exploit.You can check if you were affected by the massive data set with the HPI’s search tool. Even if you weren’t affected, you should consider changing your outdated passwords, or using a password manager. Tales of a hacked Nest Cam: It convinced a family that the US was being attacked by North Korea.On the watchtower: These are the rockstar hackers protecting you from the bad guys. Up to 2.2 billion records of hacked accounts are available for download. James Martin/CNET Billions of hacked passwords and usernames from the last decade have come together in a convenient download for anyone who can find it on the dark web. More than 2.2 billion usernames and passwords have been compiled and laid out for hackers to use, according to researchers from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany. The compiled data doesn’t come from any fresh breaches: Much of the information was accumulated in hacks like LinkedIn’s 100 million breached accounts and Dropbox’s 68 million stolen credentials, both of which happened in 2012. While this stolen data has been available for years, the massive collection conveniently puts it all in one download for people to use. Researchers are referring to all that as Collection #2 through Collection #5, and it’s one of the largest compilations of stolen credentials in history. It follows the 773 million email addresses released in Collection #1 earlier in January. Data breaches are a painful reality of the digital era, with billions of people’s personal and confidential information at stake. That’s drawn the attention of lawmakers, who are considering ways to punish multimillion-dollar companies that can’t protect people’s private data. Compiling data from old breaches could be a startling new trend for cybercriminals, said Emily Wilson, vice president of research at security firm Terbium Labs. “Data from thousands of breaches, big and small, is floating around on the dark web on any given day,” she said. “There’s nothing stopping an enterprising criminal from gathering the data together, packaging it and remarketing it — especially when they can turn a profit.” Post a comment 3:26 Now playing: Watch this: Biggest hacks of 2018 0 Tags Securityread more